Amid the intensification of US-China rivalry, the United States has struggled to enhance its partnerships with ASEAN, enabling China to grow its presence in the region. To this end, the Biden administration should bolster its public diplomacy with Southeast Asia. ASEAN is a strategically and economically important region that the United States cannot afford to neglect. Handling 40 per cent of merchandise trade globally, Southeast Asia is poised to become the world’s fourth largest economy by 2030. Its proximity to China and other security partners like India, Japan an ..read more

Climate change is projected to have significant, adverse effects on human lives, property and economic growth in China. Acknowledging this, Beijing updated its Climate Change Adaptation Strategy in 2022. But as the Chinese Communist Party has become hypersensitive to national security threats, climate change is now perceived as just one of the dangers to the country’s political and economic stability. Climate actions are arguably primarily driven by concerns about regime stability, not threats to individuals or the biosphere. Amid weakening economic growth, Beijing wants to revisit and streng ..read more

The landslide victory of Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto in Indonesia’s 14 February 2024 presidential election has been been confirmed, with Subianto officially declared president-elect by the General Election Commission on 20 March. Prabowo has proposed eight major programs as part of his election manifesto, but a free lunch program for students in Indonesia is his flagship proposal. This has been touted as a means of hastening reductions in Indonesia’s child stunting rates which, despite recent reductions, remained at 21.6 per cent in 2022. While Prabowo’s free lunch reforms aspire t ..read more

As the dust settles over the 2024 Indonesian general election, Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka have claimed victory as the next president and vice president. The former three-star general and the son of the incumbent president have promised to continue President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo’s ambitious economic development and legacy infrastructure projects, including moving the administrative capital from Jakarta to Ibu Kota Nusantara (IKN) in East Kalimantan. This relocation project is not just a political move to secure the legacy of President Jokowi. With some strategic cons ..read more

The conflict between the Marcos and Duterte families in the Philippines has taken on a dark twist. At a rally in Davao City on 28 January 2024, former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte called President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr a drug addict. Duterte’s son, Davao City Mayor Sebastian ‘Baste’ Duterte, while asking for Bongbong to resign called the president lazy and lacking in compassion.  Bongbong Marcos’ sister, Senator Imee Marcos, who has been trying to forge an alliance with the Duterte family, attempted damage control. She claimed Baste had apologised to her, only ..read more

Public polls over the past 10 years have consistently shown that more than half of South Koreans want their country to have nuclear weapons. North Korea’s growing nuclear arsenal has made South Koreans want to develop their own nuclear program. Interestingly, this trend has not been affected by US security guarantees. Even the 2023 Washington Declaration, which was regarded as a significant upgrade in the United States–South Korea alliance’s nuclear extended deterrence, appears to have had little impact. South Korea’s desire for an independent nuclear arsenal is so strong that even US efforts ..read more

Germany observed its Southeast Asia Week in March 2024, hosting Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin at the Federal Chancellery in Berlin. These visits highlighted the resolve of Social Democratic Party (SPD) Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s ‘traffic light’ coalition to walk the talk on engaging Southeast Asia and to pursue a de-risking strategy towards China. In 2020, Germany became a party to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia as it rolled out its first ‘Policy Guidelines for the Indo-Pacific’, ma ..read more

Until recently the Japanese yen was a safe haven currency. When shocks like Brexit hit the global market, Japanese investors — the apocryphal Mrs Watanabe retail investors — brought their savings back to Japan. When there was global uncertainty, the yen strengthened, making Japanese exports less competitive. That was despite three decades of low economic growth and structural headwinds like a shrinking and ageing population.  The yen is now the weakest it’s been against the US dollar since 1990. Even tourists from developing Asia find Japan a cheap destination and attracting foreign ..read more

Last month, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) took its first step in the ‘normalisation’ of monetary policy. It raised the Bank’s short-term policy interest rate from negative 0.1 per cent to 0–0.1 per cent and ceased most of its unconventional quantitative and qualitative easing (QQE) measures. Lifting interest rates even by a miniscule 10 basis points certainly heralded a new era in Japanese monetary policy, as policy shifted in the direction of tightening credit for the first time in seventeen years. After two decades of wishing to create inflation, the BOJ finally signalled that it might need to co ..read more

Contrary to its depiction as an external influence, Christianity is deeply woven into modern China’s historical, cultural and political tapestry. Its presence has been notable in various pivotal movements, from the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions in the 19th century to the Christian presidents Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek during the Republic of China era. Yet, after the Communist Party established and consolidated its rule in the mid-20th century, the state’s approach to Christianity changed significantly. There were periods, particularly during the political campaigns between the 1950s–70s, w ..read more